Monday, July 16, 2007

NEWS ROUNDUP

State Dispatchers Dismissed Early 911 Reports of Tahoe Fire Two dispatchers with the California Highway Patrol initially dismissed 911 calls reporting a fire on the south rim of Lake Tahoe, causing a seven- to nine-minute delay in the response to it, recordings released Friday show. Dispatchers told callers that the smoke they were seeing was from a controlled burn in the area. The smoke was actually from a wildfire that ultimately destroyed 254 homes and burned 3,100 acres of mountain wilderness. “I’m on the golf course, it’s Lake Tahoe Country Club, and we can see smoke coming off the mountain to the west of us,” a man reported, according to a transcript of the first call received at 2:02 p.m. June 24 by the patrol’s communications center in Truckee. The dispatcher responded: “Yeah. Yeah, they’re doing a — a control burn there.” The unidentified male caller said: “Thank you. Sorry to bother you.” Capt. Gary Ross, commander of the Truckee office, said the dispatchers’ dismissals of the reports caused a delayed response to the fire. Also, Highway Patrol policy instructs dispatchers to keep callers on the line and transfer them to a local fire department in such situations. In these cases, the dispatchers let the callers hang up. Both dispatchers have been reassigned while the Highway Patrol investigates, Captain Ross said....
Scholar: USFS conclusion wrong concerning Angora fire path After a first-hand look, one forest-restoration specialist has drawn significantly different conclusions than the U.S. Forest Service about how and why the Angora fire burned so intensely. Tom Bonnicksen, emeritus professor of forest science at Texas A&M University and visiting scholar with the Forest Foundation, a logging-industry group, toured the burned area last week. "The Angora fire was a crown fire that killed all the trees that were 40-60 inches in diameter. Anybody can see that; all you have to do is look at it," said Bonnicksen during a phone interview on Tuesday. "This was a situation where homeowners didn't stand a chance. They were victims of the surrounding forest." he said. Bonnicksen said fire racing through the top of an overly dense forest was the major cause of property damage, while Rex Norman, USFS spokesman, has repeatedly reiterated the initial findings of agency investigators....
Some blame BLM policies for huge blaze The spread of the Milford Flat Fire across a wide swath of central Utah desert is sparking concern among some Utah lawmakers that the Bureau of Land Management hasn’t managed the cheatgrass and pinyon-covered rangeland within the burn area well enough to prevent wildfires. The Milford Flat Fire, ignited July 6 by lightning, is Utah’s largest-ever wildfire, incinerating more than 363,000 acres of rangeland upon which many area ranchers depended for their livelihoods. But Utah state Sen. Dennis Stowell, R-Parowan, said despite drought conditions, ranchers may have been dealt an unnecessary blow. “I just feel like (we have) failed environmental policy in the whole country,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of fuel build-up, a lot of pinyon-juniper. We’re not managing the land enough.” Stowell, who toured the burn area Wednesday, criticized the BLM for not allowing enough cattle to graze rangeland in the region and permitting pinyon-juniper forests killed by bark beetles to remain standing. As a testament to the fire resistance of intensely managed land, some of the rangeland in the Milford Flat Fire’s path that was pastured didn’t burn, Stowell said. “Years ago, we didn’t have a lot of forest fires or range fires because we had proper grazing,” Millard County Commissioner John C. Cooper said. Now, he said, the BLM is often too eager to limit grazing, especially during a drought. “The abundance of fuel has become crazy,” he said. “When we have these fires, it’s replaced by cheatgrass. We need to reseed this burned area.”....
On fire lines, cost a concern His first day leading the attack on the Milford Flat fire, Rowdy Muir declared his crews would stop it - the largest wildfire in Utah's modern history - with half the money he'd been promised to do the job. Spending less to do more might sound like an audacious claim, since costs seem to be flaring up as fast as new wildfires and the acreage they leave in ashes. But the incident commander's pledge is a sign that wildfire managers no longer look only at the fire lines, but the bottom line as well. For decades, wildfire costs were addressed with a blank check. Congress, state forest agencies and local fire departments would spend first and pay later, usually the next budget year. "In the last few years, we have become more cost conscious," said Randy Eardley, a spokesman for the BLM and the Interagency Fire Center in Boise. At the Milford Flat fire, as with all wildfires these days, auditors are on the scene with spreadsheets and calculators. Even the tube of lip balm or sunscreen a medic hands out gets logged and tallied for the final bill. The air tankers dousing homes with fire retardant, the food service contractors for the 500 firefighters, the satellite mapping experts, the portable toilet providers - expenses add up fast....
Climate Change Debate Hinges On Economics Here's the good news about climate change: Energy and climate experts say the world already possesses the technological know-how for trimming greenhouse gas emissions enough to slow the perilous rise in the Earth's temperatures. Here's the bad news: Because of the enormous cost of addressing global warming, the energy legislation considered by Congress so far will make barely a dent in the problem, while farther-reaching climate proposals stand a remote chance of passage. Despite growing public concern over global warming, the House has failed to agree on new standards for automobile fuel efficiency, and the Senate has done little to boost the efficiency of commercial office buildings and appliances. In September, Congress is expected to start wrestling with more ambitious legislation aimed at slowing climate change; but because of the complexity of the likely proposals, few expect any bill to become law. Even if passed by Congress and signed by President Bush, the final measure may not be tough enough to slow global warming....
Group works to preserve open space between Springs & Pueblo Following examples elsewhere in the state, ranchers and conservationists are working to save 200,000 acres of open space between Colorado Springs and Pueblo from urban sprawl. Rancher Jay Frost is an unlikely member of the group, which calls itself the Peak to Prairie Conservation Initiative. The second-generation rancher just sold development rights to 915 acres along Fountain Creek to the group. He always knew he would have to sell some land but he is surprised to feel good about it. "Our family always loved this place, but agriculture can be a tough racket," Frost, 46, told the Gazette recently while taking a break from mowing hay with his sons. "It would be easy to sell the place. We get offers all the time. This way, we get some of the value while keeping the ranch on the land." Landowners get tax breaks, allowing them to stay in business, while development is blocked where conservation easements are in place. Such a buffer already exists in an area between Monument and Castle Rock to the north. The Nature Conservancy, the national leader in creating conservation easements, is behind the latest initiative, along with Colorado Open Lands. They want to start by blocking development on at least 60,000 acres in the next 10 years....
Pneumonia kills Oregon bighorns State biologists are trying desperately to deal with a domestic sheep disease that is killing bighorns in one of Oregon's signature Rocky Mountain bighorn herds. The Hells Canyon herd, numbering 900 animals in Oregon, Washington and Idaho (most of them in Oregon), is the largest of the state's Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep herds, also found throughout the Wallowa Mountains. High desert sheep are California bighorns, a subspecies of the Rocky Mountain. Craig Ely, northeast regional supervisor for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission on Friday in Lincoln City that Hells Canyon sheep are dying of a bacterial pneumonia strain common in domestic sheep. It affects domestic lambs only mildly but is deadly for wild bighorns. Some Hells Canyon bands have been wiped out by the pneumonia, some haven't yet been affected, and still others had survivors when it swept through. Domestic sheep ranchers are under a court order to remove their animals from 6,000 acres of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.
Sierra Blancans again debate possible sludge dump That smell - a peculiarly pungent combination of sewage chemicals and human waste - might soon be wafting back into Sierra Blanca. It's the scent of money for some in this tiny, economically frustrated border town. It's the stench of environmental injustice to those fighting to keep their desert home from again becoming a dumping ground. "If someone else doesn't want it, why in the hell would we want it in our backyard?" asked Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West, a lifelong Sierra Blanca resident. A decade and a half ago, New York-based Merco Joint Ventures started hauling treated New York City sewage to scrubland just outside Sierra Blanca, spraying tons of it daily on thousands of acres. The spraying stopped in 2001, and the company went bankrupt. Now, the state of Texas has bought the land and leased it to a group that wants to resume spreading sewage....
Butterflies aren't free The Taylor's checkerspot butterfly is no bigger than a man's thumb, sports splashy orange and black wings, cavorts in sunny meadows ringed by oak and pine, tastes with its feet, nectars on wild strawberries, has a short (but splendid) lifespan of five to eight days, and is in imminent danger of forever disappearing from the face of the earth. Fifty years ago, Euphydryas editha taylori fluttered in more than 70 meadows throughout the Puget Sound region, Willamette Valley and south Vancouver Island. Since then, 97 percent of the butterflies' upland prairie habitat has been wiped out — victim of agriculture, urban development, logging, invasive plants, pesticides, a Wal-Mart parking lot and drought. They've vanished from British Columbia and all but 14 spots in Washington and Oregon. Of those sites, most have fewer than 50 butterflies. But one rare patch of prairie, tucked behind a hummock off an old wagon trail outside Corvallis, is home to about a thousand Taylor's checkerspots, a quarter of the population on the planet....
Roan drilling plan sparks controversy In the Roan, driling means disrupting a pristine piece of Colorado's natural heritage in order to access the state's abundant natural resources. Lawmakers are still battling over how to balance those interests. The controversy heated up in early June when federal officials decided to allow drilling for natural resources in the Roan. Democratic lawmakers were upset, members of the public were angry and Gov. Bill Ritter wrote a scathing letter to Secretary of the Interior Dick Kempthorne, saying the decision undermined the state's relationship with the federal government. U.S. Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar tried to block Bureau of Land Management funding for the plan, but that measure failed in Congress. In Colorado, others want to embrace the plan. Two GOP lawmakers said they want to make the most of it by funneling Roan drilling revenue into state higher education coffers, which are desperately in need of more money. Then, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar parried with a plan to block President Bush's new choice to lead the BLM, the federal department that approved the Roan drilling proposal....
Conflicting science? Some coal-bed methane industry officials are upset because it appears federal land managers have chosen to accept peer-reviewed studies of sage grouse over the work of their own environmental consultants. Earlier this month, the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management accepted the results of more than five years of studies performed by University of Montana researchers, headed by professor David Naugle. The work was vetted through the peer review process and will be published in the industry's top journals: the Journal of Wildlife Management, and the Journal of Avian Diseases. Among Naugle's findings: Sage grouse leks within development areas are predicted to disappear, on average, within four years of coal-bed methane development. From 2000 to 2005, sage grouse populations within coal-bed methane fields declined 86 percent, whereas populations outside active areas declined by 35 percent, according to the studies. Gene George, of Gene George & Associates, said several oil and gas companies have paid for studies for more than a year to analyze the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's grouse count database and the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission's database of drilling information. "We hired someone to confirm his answers, and we can't confirm them," George said. "We didn't generate that data. It is based on the Game and Fish's own database, not industry's database." Renee Taylor, of Taylor Environmental Consulting in Casper, said she hadn't yet read Naugle's final work. However, her own work during the past year disputes his findings. Presented with her findings, federal land managers have given her only a "stone-faced" reply, she said....
DM&E: Ranchers using courts to stall Railroad officials and supporters say opponents are using the courts to delay development, but landowners in western South Dakota say they're simply protecting their land in unfair negotiation. Complaints filed by landowners halted eminent domain hearings earlier this week in the Dakota Minnesota & Eastern Railroad's efforts to gain right-of-way for tracks into Wyoming. Landowners claimed the state violated its own due process laws. The railroad responded by asking the South Dakota Supreme Court for an expedited review to move the issue along quickly. "It's just a delay tactic," DM&E chief executive officer Kevin Schieffer said of the landowners' actions. Jim and Bev Varelman, who raise quarter horses and hay east of Hermosa, are among those suing the DM&E. She said their dealings with the railroad have not been good. "They have been trying to say they negotiate in good faith," she said. "Many years go by without correspondence. The offers we get have no monetary value. Five days before the circuit court hearing, we finally got an offer that was not a good offer at all." Bev Varelman said the proposed rail route would separate 438 acres of their ranch from a water source. It would make the land unusable for raising livestock, and the DM&E has been unwilling to take her suggestion and move the track a quarter-mile south to avoid the problem, she said....
Texas ranchers scoff at border fence He's been living here off and on for more than half a century, so rancher Bill Moody figured he had experienced about all the excitement and madness the Texas-Mexico border could offer. When there's not a drug bust going down or a lost immigrant begging for food, Moody sometimes finds himself in the company of Hollywood directors, such as the one who filmed "Lonesome Dove" here years ago and was back recently working on a prequel called "Comanche Moon." But the federal plan for a massive security fence along the border strikes Moody, 84, as too far-fetched for a screenplay and downright nutty for his gigantic Rancho Rio Grande, which runs through three counties between Del Rio and Eagle Pass. "If the wall would help, I wouldn't mind. But it won't help. It'll be a big expense, a big problem, ugly as hell and unfriendly to Mexico," said Moody, heir to one of the largest and oldest fortunes in Texas. "It's not going to happen." Moody and other landowners along the Rio Grande generally have little in common with open-border proponents and environmental activists, who also oppose the 698-mile fencing project Congress approved late last year. Taken together, though, their voices have cranked up the heat against a border fence....
In Role Reversal, China Blocks Some U.S. Meat China announced Saturday that it was blocking imports of some U.S. processed meat that showed signs of contamination, turning the tables on critics who in recent months have questioned the safety of Chinese exports and making good on a warning that it would apply greater scrutiny to food shipments entering its borders. The suspension affected some of the largest U.S. food companies, including Cargill Meat Solutions and Tyson Foods, the world's largest meat processor. In recent weeks, Beijing has rejected a number of other U.S. products at its ports of entry, including health supplements, sugar-free drink mix and dried fruits such as raisins and apricots. The increasingly aggressive moves are raising concern that what started as a seemingly isolated investigation in March over contaminated pet food from China has trigged a broader trade skirmish. The Chinese government said it had stopped problem shipments from seven U.S. companies. Among them, Tyson's frozen poultry products were contaminated with salmonella and Cargill's frozen pork ribs were laced with a feed additive designed to keep animals lean, the government said. The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine also said that frozen chicken feet from Sanderson Farms contained an anti-parasite treatment residue and that frozen pig ears from Van Luin Foods USA also tested positive for the leanness-enhancing additive, called ractopamine....
Food-Labeling Effort Gains New Momentum Shoppers are in the dark about where much of their food comes from despite a five-year-old law requiring meat and other products to carry labels with their country of origin. That soon may change. Reports of tainted seafood from China have raised consumer awareness about the safety of imported food and many of the law's most powerful opponents have left Congress. "The political dynamic is such that there's just no getting around it," said Colin Woodall, director of legislative affairs for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. The livestock group has opposed a mandatory labeling program. The law's leading opponents are grocery stores and large meatpacking companies, many of whom mix U.S. and Mexican beef, along with other businesses involved in getting products to supermarket shelves. They say the tracking and the paperwork needed to comply with the law is too burdensome and would cause them to raise prices. The labeling requirement, popular with small, independent ranchers who sell their own products, applies to certain cuts of beef, lamb, pork, as well as to peanuts, fruits and vegetables. Processed foods are exempt. So are restaurants and other food service establishments....
Ranchers start last roundup of tainted cows Ordinarily, a roundup on the Morgan ranch would happen in the fall. Jim and Sandy Morgan, along with Sandy's parents, Connie and Bruce Malcolm, and perhaps a few neighbors, would head into the hills behind the red butte south of Bridger and bring in the cows and their calves. They would trail behind the cows and check out the bulky calves, admiring the traits for which their Black Angus herd is known. But this week, the roundup came early, at the end of a two-month ordeal that began with the discovery that seven of the Morgans' cows had brucellosis, a contagious disease that causes cows to abort their calves. In Montana, the disease had been eradicated in livestock, earning the state brucellosis-free status, but it is still present in wild bison and elk. To maintain the brucellosis-free status, the Morgans' entire herd of about 600 cows and calves will have to be destroyed. About 2,400 other cows that livestock officials believe may have had contact with the Morgan herd have been tested and found free of the disease. Friday, the Morgans and Malcolms and a few of their neighbors gathered the last of the cattle from the pasture to be shipped to slaughter beginning Monday....
Restoring history at Point Reyes Historic buildings that have served ranchers for decades on the far west tip of Marin, helping carve the region's indelible identity, are being rehabilitated. The land on Point Reyes has been used for agriculture for almost two centuries, and the barns and buildings housing animals, equipment, tools and wood have been part of the landscape. The buildings have taken a beating over the years, from thick fog to harsh winds. Now the Point Reyes National Seashore is spending $300,000 to upgrade several of the wooden buildings - which are still in use - over the next two years. And some of the buildings have a few years on them. The seashore's historic preservation crew will be rehabilitating a tool shed, built in 1865; main barn, 1880; machine shop, 1925; garage, 1945, as well as a woodshed constructed in 1945....
Schemer worked Yellowstone National Park for 2 decades despite numerous complaints Tourist John F. Philips arrived here in the summer of 1902 with the hope of catching some prized trout in Yellowstone Lake. Instead, he left bitter and befuddled after a brush with one of Yellowstone's most notorious businessmen, E.C. Waters. "This man, 'Captain' Waters as he calls himself, is a very impertinent and obtrusive person, of whom complaints and criticisms were in the mouths of nearly all persons who came in contact with him," Philips wrote from his home in Kansas City, Mo., about a week later. "The general verdict was that he is a public nuisance." Philips' letter is one in a stack of complaints in Yellowstone's archives about Waters during his scandal-ridden 20 years in the park. Waters was eventually run out of the park, but not before he left behind an emblem of his ambition: the wreck of an eponymous steamship still visible today on the eastern shore of Stevenson Island. Historian Richard Bartlett said Waters - who ran a Billings hotel in 1885 and was elected a Montana territorial legislator the next year - was "probably the most difficult concessionaire who ever operated in Yellowstone Park."....
Butch, Sundance live on in debate over their deaths If the Pinkerton detective bunch had left them alone, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would have lived out their days as law-abiding ranchers in Argentina. At least that's what Cassidy's great-great nephew Bill Betenson believes about the outlaw pair. On Thursday, Betenson spoke about their lives in Argentina for people at the Western Outlaw-Lawmen History Association's Cheyenne Shootout. What is known is that the two men and Etta Place traveled to Argentina in 1901, Betenson said. Place was the companion of Harry Longabaugh, popularly known as the Sundance Kid. Shortly after arriving in Buenos Aires, they walked into a bank. "We know they tried a new concept," Betenson said. "They actually deposited money in the bank." They left $12,000 in gold notes. They traveled to Cholila in west-central Argentina. The current mayor of the town told him Cassidy owned the first titled land in the valley, Betenson said. The men bought 1,500 acres of lush ranch land nestled at the base of the craggy Andes Mountains. Cassidy, whose real name was Robert LeRoy Parker, wrote that he had 300 head of cattle, 1,450 sheep and 28 good saddle horses. Betenson showed the group slides of old photos taken in front of the cabin at the Argentina ranch. Looking out from the photos are the two men and Place....

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